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Microsoft has produced a film that portrays the world of work a few years from now. I remember seeing one of these from 1990 – a bright cheery world of the future where a woman talked to a computer in her car while the computer arranged meetings and prepared presentations. At the time I wondered if the world of the future would match the utopian vision. Well, the future has arrived, and it isn’t always pretty.

The reality is quite different. For instance, our work measurement studies show that employees spend 3.2 hours per week reading miscellaneous emails that have nothing to do with their main activities. And many employees spend 30 minutes per week fixing technology problems.

The film omits these and other technological glitches that are part of daily life. When it comes to time management, technology can often hinder as much as it can help. Consider this list of hassles that no one predicted:

Spam

Voice mail jail

Unnecessary emails

Dropped cell phone calls

Unwanted telemarketing calls

Car crashes caused by texting

Drained batteries

Ringing phones at movies

Phone interruptions at restaurants

Broken web site links

Computer viruses

Costly smart phone apps

Expensive downloading costs

Identity theft

Billing problems from service providers

Help desks that offer no help

Inadvertent pocket dialing

Hackers

Blackberry service interruptions

Social media obligations

Advertising everywhere

If the world of today includes all of these things that no one predicted twenty years ago, then the world of the future is just as likely to be fraught with frustrations.

What We Do

About Mark Ellwood

Mark Ellwood is president of Pace Productivity, an international consulting firm that specializes in improving corporate productivity. We do this by conducting employee-friendly time studies and providing training programs. We show organizations how their employees can gain an extra hour per day for their top priority activities.